The Sony Music and Bob Dylan twitter accounts were hacked yesterday (December 26). Both accounts tweeted out false reports of Britney Spears’ death.

The first message came from the Sony Music Global Twitter account, which read “RIP @britneyspears #RIPBritney”. It was quickly followed by a second, “britney spears is dead by accident! we will tell you more soon #RIPbritney”. A similar tweet was soon posted from Bob Dylan’s official Twitter account.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the rumour appears to have been spread by OurMine, a hacker group who were responsible for recent hacks of the Marvel and Netflix accounts. Later tweets from both Sony and Dylan credited the organisation. Britney Spears is yet to respond to the tweets.

The pop star was hosting a charity benefit event raising money for Malawi on December 2. The night raised $7.5 million (£5.9m) and also featured the likes of Ariana Grande and Sean Penn.

Madonna chose to cover Spears’ 2003 single ‘Toxic’, but instead of performing a faithful version of the song made some changes to the track. Dressed in a tiny top hat, pink top with oversized tulle collar and sleeves and black-and-white striped leggings, she sung a slowed down rendition over eerie backing music.